Your very first memory.

[Calgray, Yorkshire]

My very first memory was of being here. The next was of falling down in the primary school when I was about 5. Still got the scar on my knee. Can anyone go further back? I find this fascinating. Carol.

[Barrowman, Bedford]

My earliest memory was at the age of four, two days after my birthday my father died and the only thing I can remember about it is laying on the settee which was just inside our front door and my mother sitting beside me crying with me, the picture is still clear in my mind today.
I cannot remember anything else about the house, just our beige settee.
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Cryings Cool

[Calgray, Yorkshire]

My earliest memory was at the age of four, two days after my birthday my father died and the only thing I can remember about it is laying on the settee which was just inside our front door and my mother sitting beside me crying with me, the picture is still clear in my mind today.
I cannot remember anything else about the house, just our beige settee.
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Cryings Cool

So sorry! That is so sad. They say that major incidents in our lives leave their mark. Carol

[spartan, kent]

My very first memory was of being here. The next was of falling down in the primary school when I was about 5. Still got the scar on my knee. Can anyone go further back? I find this fascinating. Carol.

My brother holding me down on the ground next to a big tree in the back garden so the earwigs could crawl over me
Must have been very young :o

[YESME, Bodmin]

I had a red and yellow metal trike and the bell kept slipping round, the man next door mended it it by putting brown paper under it. I thought that this man was a genius. :D

After speaking to my mum I would have been 3 at the time.

[Shelledpea, Stalybridge]

I remember being in a bright red ski suit type thing wandering round Jedburgh Abbey with my uncles two dobermans.

I'd have been about 3 as my brother wasn't there, mum wasn't pregnant and my uncle wasn't off in the Falklands!

Next one after that is me asking my mum to take my brother back because he was too noisy!

[Grant, West Sussex]

... my brother parking a Batman helicopter into my knee - man they made toys with very sharp edges back in the 70s!

[cornish girl, falmouth]

I remember after heavy rain seeing all these snails every where I must hae been 5 years old a the time, and I was convinced for years that snails fell from the sky,also my granfer died at home and my granny said we must open the window to let his soul out, and as she did I was convinced I heard the flapping of wings .

[aloise, cheshire]

my first memory is of when my mother took me to a convent were i was to stay fo the next 6 years (she died while i was there )I had a large baby doll and children were not allowed there own toys so it was taken off me and thrown on top of a large cubboard. Never saw it again. I did love that doll and cried buckets.

[Calgray, Yorkshire]

my first memory is of when my mother took me to a convent were i was to stay fo the next 6 years (she died while i was there )I had a large baby doll and children were not allowed there own toys so it was taken off me and thrown on top of a large cubboard. Never saw it again. I did love that doll and cried buckets.

Why is it that our first memories are so sad? I am really interested in this topic, but I have to admit that your memories bring a lump into my throat. Hope Aloise you have had a good life since then. Carol

[Aplmac, Barbados]

Wretched people..

my first memory is of when my mother took me to a convent
where i was to stay fo the next 6 years (she died while i was there )
I had a large baby doll and children were not allowed there own toys
so it was taken off me and thrown on top of a large cupboard.
Never saw it again. I did love that doll and cried buckets.

You just have to love convents.

They're usually manned by the harshest, least-Christian lot of frustrated people
you'll ever come across!

Now I ask you...why take away a doll from a child being left alone?
Surely the doll might bring comfort and solace to the child, as a make-believe friend of sorts.

Sorry! -none of that wussy-ness in here: this is a convent
not a charitable institution!


____________________________________________
My first schooling was at the local Ursuline Convent
from age 4 to 5.
It only lasted a year, after I came home with scary stories of threats,etc.
The nuns were not cute, and I remain "psychologically scarred" to this day.

The only thing that eases the trauma and pain,now..
is when kindly folk post me their used cruise-cards for my growing collection! ;)
.

[Barrowman, Bedford]

Thanks to Carol for starting this topic, without a doubt the majority of memories of our early years are not good ones, having lost my father at the age of four and my mother never remarrying - we were on the breadline for many years, my earliest good memory was at the age of thirteen when my mother presented me with my first bicycle for christmas.

There must have been good times prior to this I'm sure, but none significant enough remain permanantly engraved in my mind, it just seemed that we managed from day to day as I'm sure many did during the 1940's and 50's.
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Cruisings Cool

[Cooke, Ashby]

Strangely my first memory is of being put on a bus by my mother, first thing in the morning, on her way to work and being met by my grandma at the bus stop near her house. This was before I started school, so I must have been about three.

[aloise, cheshire]

I think the unhappy memories stick in your mind more. I't amounts to trauma for a young child and so stays with you for life
You are right Aplmac, i still wonder how nuns who are so very religious could be so cruel to children. And believe me they were cruel.
Many women were forced into the convents in the 30s and 40s by their religious familys.
Perhaps that was part of the problem.
It was a prestige thing. The nuns didn't want my grandmother to take me home, they had earmarked me for a novice nun. Believe me i would NOT have made a good nun. They were very lucky. lol

[wee annie, Huddersfield]

I remember when I was 4 my Grandad came to take me from Glasgow to his house in Blackpool for a holiday before I started school. I vividly remember the long bus journey, the sea side (first time I ever saw a donkey!), the tower. My Granny was in a wheelchair and I loved standing on the front of it while Grandad pushed her along. It was my first holiday and I remember it so clearly even though it was nearly 50 years ago.